A monarch s journey of a lifetime Tuesday, April 27, 2021 3:47 PM Roughly one percent of all monarchs tagged will be recovered in Mexico. This photo, featured on the back cover of my book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, shows the very first monarch I ever tagged.
In late July, early August, I walk through my gardens with a mission.
I make a beeline for the eight different species of milkweed growing
there. At each plant, I inspect every leaf for tiny pearlescent eggs,
laid one at a time, usually one per leaf, and often just one per plant.
At
that time of year, these monarch butterfly eggs will hatch out a very
The Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is one of the best known and most striking insects in the world. Although they can be found on five continents, the phenomenon of their migration of more than 2,600 miles, from the cold mountains of the United States and Canada to the temperate forests of central Mexico, only occurs in North America.
It is believed that early European immigrants named them on behalf of William III, Prince of Orange and King of England.
This impressive migration was known by ancient Mexicans, who related butterflies to the souls of their deceased, but no one knew where they came from until Canadian researchers,
PREMIUM
Author Ian Rankin with some of the haul of his personal archive donated to the National Library of Scotland thursday after downsizing his Edinburgh home and which include early drafts of Rebus novels and letters to fellow authors..Pic Gordon Terris/The He AMONG the many things I’ve missed this past year is working in the National Library of Scotland. With its studiously hushed reading rooms, Pickwickian shelves of leather-bound books, and trolleys piled with returns, like upmarket ScotRail buffet carts, the NLS is a haven for anyone who needs access to the millions of books, manuscripts and images held its bottomless archive.